Chevron to be sued over new oil spill off Brazil's coast

U.S. oil giant Chevron will be sued over a new oil spill off Brazil's southeastern coast, local daily O Globo said on Friday. Globo said that federal prosecutor Eduardo Santos de Oliveira is working on a criminal process against Chevron for the spill, the second in four months. Last year, after the first oil spill, the prosecutor started a 20-billion-U.S.-dollar civil suit against Chevron, and also requested the suspension of all the company's extraction operations in Brazil. The National Petroleum Agency (ANP) forbade Chevron from making new drillings in the region, but allowed the company to continue the production in a well already in operation. The new leak was announced on Thursday. According to Chevron, the place from where the oil leaked is three kilometers way from the site of the first spill, which occurred in last November. So far some 3,000 barrels of oil spilt into the sea, off Rio de Janeiro state's coast. Chevron alleged that the new leak has no relation to the November incident. Brazil's environmental protection agency Ibama, however, stated that as Chevron was not drilling in the area, the two incidents must be related. Earlier in the day, Rio's Environment Secretary Carlos Minc said that Chevron showed imprudence by maintaining its extraction operation in the Frade Field after the first oil spill. Chevron was fined 50 million reais (28.6 million U.S. dollars) for the spill in November and was forbidden to drill in the area until investigations of the accident were over.